


fire & doubt

by Koraki (orphan_account)



Category: Tales of the Kingdom
Genre: F/F, Gen, Insecurity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:18:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Koraki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda is worried, and uncertain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fire & doubt

**Author's Note:**

> I loved this trilogy of books as a kid. When I went back and read "Tales of the Resistance" (with the express intent, actually, of finding something inspiring), the implications of this relationship, what with the way it was presented, were rather astonishing. So of course I had to write something for it!

I love her spirit, she says to herself once, for what it could be, and that is truly beautiful.

Amanda, never really one for beautiful things, nevertheless can appreciate choice breathtaking sights, and has many times in her life – the stars rising in a clear winter sky behind the mountains at the western edge of Great Park, the spring sunrise over Lake Marmo, her elegant dress that only she seems to see with any consistency – and she thinks she recognizes that feeling of awe anew here.

She gazes at the girl – the woman? – nightly, now, drinking in the sight of her, simply her.

The spirit that will be, she reminds herself, and feels the strangest pang of mistrust.

If only it were something else she mistrusted, some stranger she’d passed earlier who seemed suspicious, residual nervousness left over from the first few nights visiting, anything at all… but of course it’s not, and that would be far too easy, after all, and no real cause for worry. No, Amanda worries that her greatest enemy threatens her yet again, tangling around her, obscuring her true sight. _Mistrust_. How could she possibly be deceiving herself? Any other emotion would make more sense, she thinks, confused.

When the pull grows strong and becomes an obsession, a need to visit the ghostly garden nightly, to summon the girl, to gaze upon her and speak to her, words flowing ceaselessly like a secret river from Amanda’s lips, it is all very frightening and terribly familiar. Years ago this very feeling had clouded her vision and deceived her, leading her away from all she held dear into valleys shadowed with death, weaving fear and suspicion and mistrust, _mistrust_ , into her life, feeding off what seemed her very spirit; the darkness had grown to maturity and full strength, but, not nearly sated, had risen to consume all of Great Park in fire and doubt. Amanda shudders at the very memory of _it_ : the dragon.

Yet it hadn’t just been _the dragon_ , not ever, and that was where she always strayed, perhaps where she always would stray. Certainly she wanders from the paths of righteousness now – how could she not? This feeling has only ever led her to danger and sorrow, and still she craves it, remembers the glint of the late spring sun on the golden egg’s shell and how _her dragon_ ’s scales glinted coppery-bronze while they danced at midsummer, somehow like the glow of moonlight on the girl’s dark skin and gleaming hair now, and somehow unlike. Of course the first time it was her dragon, and now it is another human being, but Amanda remembers curling up against her dragon in the dappled shade of the trees and looking up into his eyes, pale yellowy eyes that never ceased to shift and glint and chill her to the bone in a most thrilling way. Perhaps it is just the distance, but when clouds obscure the moon while the girl stands far above Amanda, her eyes, however dead they may be, only seem to shine.


End file.
